Monday, November 11, 2013

Musing on Jurassic Park

You may have noticed that I was supposed to put up a movie
review on Friday, but the good movie I considered reviewing, Jurassic Park, has
been reviewed to death. It’s a fun movie. Spielberg did an excellent job
translating Michael Crichton’s trudge of a novel into an endlessly rewatchable
movie that brought dinosaurs back into the public eye. The flaws have all been
talked about-dated science, poor logic, underdeveloped characters, etc. The
strengths have also all been talked about-the likable performances, the
masterful editing and directing, the beautiful music, and fantastic special
effects.The sequels are horrible, but I
will deal with them eventually.

So, what I’m going to talk about is the upcoming sequel. Is
it really a good idea? What to do with it? Well, let’s see where the sequels
went: the first sequel featured two Tyrannosaurs instead of one; the plot
changed to be about unscrupulous dinosaur hunters than about the dinosaurs,
introduced Stegosaurus to the dinosaur roll call, and only retained Ian Malcolm
of the original characters. The second featured Spinosaurus instead of
Tyrannosaurus, the plot was about surviving and escaping the island, introduced
Spinosaurus and Ceratosaurus, and only retained Alan Grant of the original
characters.

Now, I wouldn’t call either film a good one. So, what would
make a good Jurassic Park movie? Well, something as good as the original:
Competent direction, good pacing, likeable, well-defined characters, and
innovation and effort. Then comes the question-isn’t that what all good stories
are about? Yep.

This leads to another question-do we need another Jurassic
Park movie? This franchise revived interest and love of dinosaurs when robots,
cars, bullets, spacecraft, lasers and martial arts seemed to have left it in
the dust. Even now, action films, romantic comedies, gross-outs, and superhero
films clearly dominate the market while dinosaurs show up once every few years.
There is an upcoming dinosaur film this Christmas, but there’s no guarantee it
will be as good or as big of a hit as Jurassic Park. So in that way, another film would be a
delight.

On the other hand, is this the only way to get a good
dinosaur movie? Jurassic Park was a great premise. The problem is, once a
premise is done, that’s it. While studios love remakes and franchise reboots, it
would not be a success critically or aesthetically.Could the franchise be taken in a different
direction? Not really. The original film doesn’t exactly lend itself to a
sequel. The film has likeable characters and a novel setting, but the strong
point is an event-after it happens, everyone is safe and goes their separate ways.
Once our heroes escape, that’s it. There’s no reason for them to return, or for
Hammond to try again, or for the dinosaurs to be in the proper circumstance to
be menacing again.It’s pretty much over, and that’s one of the
reasons the sequels failed-the story has been told. The same thing happened
with the Jaws films; after the original, there’s just no need for the story to
continue.

So now what? Well, there’s more than one way to make a good
dinosaur movie. A simple idea is a film from a dinosaur’s point of view. Of course,
this is anthropomorphizing, and it ranges: from the well-done novel Raptor Red and
television show Dinosaur Revolution to the poorly done films Tarbosaurs 3D and
Dinosaur.This upcoming Walking With
Dinosaurs movie is definitely in the same mold, and has many people worried for
that. Anthropomorphism is also more for a children’s story, and this is reflected
by the works I just mentioned-only Raptor Red is an adult book, and that’s more
for language, gore, and advanced scientific concepts.

So, the solution is to get dinosaurs and people together in
a way where the people are in danger.A
truly genius writer could come up with something entirely new, but the main
methods are the proverbial lost world, time travel, or prehistoric fantasy
(caveman movies, for example).These
have been done to death, but to be fair, not that well done. I mentioned
remakes-instead of remaking Jurassic Park, why not remake One Million BC
(again)? Or The Lost World (again)? Or something similar with interesting
characters. Both technology and what we know about dinosaurs have both
increased, and it’s those particular innovations that made Jurassic Park so
great; the dinosaurs were portrayed more realistically than ever before, and by
new methods of technology.

What would really help is a work that inspires many others.
Jurassic Park inspired many more dinosaur books, films, toys and other media in
pop culture. Walking With Dinosaurs led to dozens of similar documentaries.
Everyone loves dinosaurs, and marketing on it would be easy. It’s this appeal
that creates dinosaur movies in the first place, and they will be inevitable,
no matter how much more popular hyper technology, superpowers, and other
science fiction and fantasy elements may be. I have faith that the time of the
dinosaurs in the public eye will come again, but I do not think Jurassic Park
will bring it about. That’s my take, anyway

So, if you have a great dinosaur movie idea, be sure to let
me know. This Friday I’ll return to form.

About Me

Hi everyone! You may know me already, but 99% of you won't. I've decided to make a blog for myself. I'm a anthropology student who has returned to his original passion for palaeontology. Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated with the weird and wonderful animals that have inhabited our planet and I've made this blog to keep this in my mind and hopefully in yours. Most people blog about their interests, and while I've got a range of interests-see history and anthropology above, not to mention zoology, astronomy, art, cooking, science fiction and fantasy films and literature, and a myriad of others, the one I want to do for a living is the study of Earth's ancient past.

On this blog I'll review papers, talk about fossils, museums, and taxa, review art, film, literature, and our culture's view of paleontology, and share memories and insights. I've been inspired by the far better blogs of professional palaeontologists, and I'll share them as time goes on. I'm also open to requests and questions of opinions, the latest palaeo news, and discussions with other fans informal and professional.

I think this is going to have fun, and I'm hoping my readers will have just as much fun.

Copyright: All media and print reviewed belongs to the owners and publishers. Likewise, all art used for this blog belongs to their artists. This is a non-profit blog for education and entertainment.